Overview:
The Bulls have not won a home game in the month of February (0-3) and tonight is their last chance to do so, against a struggling Sixers team. Philadelphia is 6-18 on the road this season, and is curently on a six-game losing streak. Chicago is now in sixth place in the Eastern Conference, after dropping three places this month.

Luckily for the Bulls, the Eastern Conference is pretty awful. The eighth place team, Milwaukee, is three and a half games back of the Bulls. The ninth place team, Philadelphia, is nine games back of the Bulls. That means, barring a major collapse, the Bulls will make the playoffs. Now they wouldn’t want to be the eighth place team, because then they’d match up with the Heat. But really, without Rose, it doesn’t matter who they match up with, because they aren’t going to go that far (even with Rose beating the Heat would be a long, long shot).

Over the last ten games, Evan Turner is shooting 35.8 percent from the field and hasn’t hit a single three pointer (he is averaging 0.7 threes per game this season). Nick Young is hitting 26.2 percent of his three over this ten game stretch, down more than ten percent from his season average.

There isn’t really much to say about the game tonight. It’s two teams playing bad basketball as of late. I feel bad for the national television audience that will be exposed to this game. Needless to say, this surely wasn’t the match-up the NBA had in mind when they scheduled this game.

The Bulls are the better team, but they already have some terrible losses on the season, most recently to the Kyrie Irving-less Cavaliers. Chicago has a lot of injuries, but they also haven’t been playing well.

“We have to play with more urgency and play together,” Joakim Noah said. “I think that is disappointing right now. It’s been a long stretch where we haven’t been playing great basketball.”

“I sure hope it can’t get any worse than this,” Sixers coach Doug Collins said after Philly’s loss to the Magic. Ditto for the Bulls.

About Braedan Ritter

Braedan joined Bulls by the Horns in 2010 and has been with the site since. You can follow Braedan on the Bulls by the Horns official account at @BullsbytheHorns